cj#863> Boyle & Blum on Iraq attacks

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X-From_: •••@••.••• Sun Nov 8 14:51:22 1998
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Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1998 08:41:41 -0600
Reply-To: "Boyle, Francis" <•••@••.•••>
Sender: World Order Conference List <•••@••.•••>
From: "Boyle, Francis" <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Attacking Iraq, Sudan,Afghanistan v. Impeaching Clinton
Comments: To: Recipients of icc-info <•••@••.•••>
To: •••@••.•••
In the drafting of the latest Security Council Resolution, France,
China and Russia all made it very clear in public that this Resolution does
not authorize the United States and Britain to use military force. And right
now Iraq is not attacking anyone. So the Charter requirements for the
peaceful resolution of disputes remain intact.
Certainly the United States government does not consider the UN
Charter to have superseded the 1907 Hague Convention. Every month the US
State Department puts out an official publication that lists so-called
Treaty Actions.This list indicates recent parties to treaties to which the
United States government is a party.I have followed this list for many
years. During the past several years, the United States State Department
itself has repeatedly listed the 1907 Hague Convention on this list as
still being valid, with the United States government still considering
itself to be a party to that treaty.The United States government religiously
records each and every new party to the 1907 Hague Convention, and indicates
that the USG is still a party. You can also find the 1907 Hague Convention
listed in the Official Publication put out by the United States Legal
Adviser every year entitled: "US Treaties in Force." That is all the opinio
juris you need.The Nicaraguans successfully made this latter point to the
World Court in the jurisdictional phase of their proceedings against the
United States.
It is obvious to large numbers of people here in the United States
that Clinton will attack Iraq in order to divert attention from the
impeachment hearings, not for a principled reason. This is precisely what he
did when he attacked Sudan and Afghanistan, the exact same day that Monica
Lewinsky was recalled by Ken Starr to testify before the grand jury
examining Clinton's behavior. Only this time, Clinton contemplates hitting
Iraq with large numbers of cruise missiles, that are notoriously inaccurate.
This has the potential to kill thousands of completely innocent Iraqi
civilians.
The death and destruction that Clinton and Blair will inflict upon the
innocent People of Iraq will be upon the consciences of all those who
support them.
Francis A. Boyle
Professor of International Law
Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820
217-333-7954(voice)
217-244-1478(fax)
•••@••.•••
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X-From_: •••@••.••• Wed Nov 11 15:31:45 1998
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 08:54:30 -0500 (EST)
From: MiD-EasT RealitieS <•••@••.•••>
To: <•••@••.•••>
Subject: The U.S. vs Iraq - A Study in Hypocrisy
Mime-Version: 1.0
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/ |/ / /___/ / /_ // M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S
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www.MiddleEast.Org M E R E X C L U S I V E :
AUTHOR CONDEMNS U.S. POLICIES TOWARD IRAQ
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M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S
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and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know from Independent
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MER EXCLUSIVE (originally published 2/10/98):
T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S V S . I R A Q
A S T U D Y I N H Y P O C R I S Y
By William Blum*
Author of - Killing Hope: U.S. Military and
CIA Interventions Since World War II
"Far and away the best book on the topic" - Noam Chomsky
"I enjoyed it immensely" - Gore Vidal
"We have heard that a half million children have died," said
"60 Minutes" reporter Lesley Stahl, speaking of US sanctions
against Iraq. "I mean, that's more children than died in
Hiroshima. And -- and you know, is the price worth it?"
Her guest, in May 1996, U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright,
responded: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price --
we think the price is worth it."
Today, Secretary of State Albright travels around the world
to gather support for yet more bombing of Iraq. The price,
apparently, is still worth it. The price is of course being paid
solely by the Iraqi people -- a million or so men, women and
children, dead from the previous bombings and seven years of
sanctions. The plight of the living in Iraq, plagued by
malnutrition and a severe shortage of medicines, is as well
terrible to behold.
Their crime? They have a leader who refuses to cede all
sovereignty to the United States (acting under its usual United
Nations cover) which demands that every structure in Iraq,
including the presidential palaces, be available for
inspection for "weapons of mass destruction". After more than
six years of these inspections, and significant destruction of
stocks of forbidden chemical, biological, and nuclear weapon
material, as well as weapons research and development programs,
the UN team still refuses to certify that Iraq is clean enough.
Inasmuch as the country is larger than California, it's
understandable that the inspectors can not be certain that all
prohibited weapons have been uncovered. It's equally
understandable that Iraq claims that the United States can, and
will, continue to find some excuse not to give Iraq the
certification needed to end the sanctions. It can be said that
the United States has inflicted more vindictive punishment and
ostracism upon Iraq than upon Germany or Japan after World War 2.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"In the not too distant future, when Iran
begins to flex its muscles a bit more, in
ways not to Washington's pleasure, it may
then be their turn for some good ol'
American "diplomacy"."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Saddam Hussein regime must wonder at the high (double)
standard set by Washington. Less than a year ago, the U.S.
Senate passed an act to implement the "Convention on the
Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use
of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction" (Short title:
Chemical Weapons Convention), an international treaty which has
been ratified by more than 100 nations in its five-year life.
The Senate act, Section 307, stipulates that "the President
may deny a request to inspect any facility in the United States
in cases where the President determines that the inspection may
pose a threat to the national security interests of the United
States." Saddam has asked for no more than this for Iraq.
Presumably, under the Senate act, the White House, Pentagon, etc.
would be off limits, as Saddam insists his presidential palaces
should be, as well as the military unit responsible for Saddam's
personal security, which an American colonel demanded to visit.
Section 303 further states that "Any objection by the
President to an individual serving as an inspector ... shall not
be reviewable in any court." Again, this echoes a repeated
complaint from the Iraqis -- a recent team of 16 inspectors
included 14 from the US and Britain, Saddam's two principal
adversaries, who are -- even as you read this -- busily planning
new bombing raids on Iraq. The team was led by a U.S. Marine
Corps captain, a veteran of the Gulf War, who has been accused of
spying by Iraq. But the Iraqis do not have a corresponding right
of exclusion. The same section of the Senate act provides,
moreover, that an FBI agent "accompanies each inspection team
visit".
The wishes of the Iraqi government to place certain sites
off limits and to have less partisan inspectors have been
dismissed out of hand by U.S. government spokespersons and the
American media. "What do they have to hide?" has been the
prevailing attitude.
The hypocrisy runs deeper yet. In his recent State of the
Union address, President Clinton, in the context of Iraq, spoke
of how we must "confront the new hazards of chemical and
biological weapons, and the outlaw states, terrorists and
organized criminals seeking to acquire them." He castigated
Saddam Hussein for "developing nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons" and called for strengthening the Biological Weapons
Convention. Who among his listeners knew, who among the media
reported, that the United States had been the supplier to Iraq of
much of the source biological materials Saddam's scientists would
require to create a biological warfare program?
According to a Senate Report of 1994: From 1985, if not
earlier, through 1989, a veritable witch's brew of biological
materials were exported to Iraq by private American suppliers
pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of
Commerce. Amongst these materials, which often produce slow and
agonizing deaths, were:
Bacillus Anthracis, cause of anthrax.
Clostridium Botulinum, a source of botulinum toxin.
Histoplasma Capsulatam, cause of a disease attacking lungs,
brain, spinal cord and heart.
Brucella Melitensis, a bacteria that can damage major organs.
Clotsridium Perfringens, a highly toxic bacteria causing
systemic illness.
Clostridium tetani, highly toxigenic.
Also, Escherichia Coli (E.Coli); genetic materials; human
and bacterial DNA.
Dozens of other pathogenic biological agents were shipped to
Iraq during the 1980s. The Senate Report pointed out: "These
biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were
capable of reproduction."
The United Nations inspectors have uncovered evidence that
Iraq was conducting research on pathogen enhancement and
biological warfare-related stimulant research on many of the
identical types of biological agents shipped to the country from
the United States. These shipments continued to at least
November 28, 1989 despite the fact that Iraq had been reported
to be engaging in chemical warfare and possibly biological
warfare against Iranians, Kurds, and Shiites since the early 80s.
During the Iraq-Iran war of 1980-88, the United States gave
military aid and intelligence information to both sides, hoping
that each would inflict severe damage on the other, in line
perhaps with what Noam Chomsky has postulated:
It's been a leading, driving doctrine of U.S. foreign policy
since the 1940s that the vast and unparalleled energy
resources of the Gulf region will be effectively dominated
by the United States and its clients, and, crucially, that
no independent, indigenous force will be permitted to have a
substantial influence on the administration of oil
production and price.
Indeed, there is evidence that Washington encouraged Iraq to
attack Iran and ignite the war in the first place. This policy,
as well as financial considerations, were likely the motivating
forces behind providing Iraq with the biological materials.
(Iran was at that time regarded as the greater threat to the
seemingly always threatened U.S. national security.)
As the American public and media are being prepared to
accept and cheerlead the next bombing of the people of Iraq, the
stated rationale, the official party line, is that Iraq is an
"outlaw" state (or "rogue" state, or "pariah" state -- the media
obediently repeats all the White House and State Department buzz
words), which is ignoring a United Nations Security Council
resolution. Israel, however, has ignored many such resolutions
without the U.S. bombing Tel Aviv, imposing sanctions, or even
cutting back military aid. But by some arcane ideological
alchemy, Israel is not deemed an "outlaw" state by Washington.
Neither does the United States regard itself so for turning its
back on a ruling of the U.N.'s World Court in 1984 to cease its
hostile military actions against Nicaragua, nor for the numerous
times the U.S. has totally ignored overwhelming General Assembly
resolutions, or for its repeated use of chemical and biological
agents against Cuba since the 1960s.
The bombing looks to be inevitable. The boys are busy
moving all their toys into position; they can already see the
battle decorations hanging from their chests. Of course, no one
knows what it will accomplish besides more death and destruction.
Saddam will remain in power. He'll be more stubborn than ever
about the inspections. There may be one consolation for the
Iraqi people. The Washington Post has reported that Secretary of
Defense William Cohen has indicated that "U.S. officials remain
wary of doing so much military damage to Iraq as to weaken its
regional role as a counterweight to Iran." In the not too
distant future, when Iran begins to flex its muscles a bit more,
in ways not to Washington's pleasure, it may then be their turn
for some good ol' American "diplomacy".
* William Blum is the author of: Killing Hope: U.S. Military
and CIA Interventions Since World War II. See:
http://members.aol.com/bblum6/American_holocaust.htm
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